A former ALPA officer who, as a pilot for Southern Airways, saw his
passengers and crew through one of the most dramatic hijackings in aviation
history has died at his home in La Grange, Tenn.

On February 26, Capt. William R. Haas, 72, died in his sleep of apparent
heart failure, a peaceful end in marked contrast to the 30-hour ordeal he and
his passengers and crew endured at the hands of a trio of skyjackers in November
1972.

Capt. Haas wasn’t even originally scheduled to take the flight from Memphis,
Tenn., to Miami, Fla., an evening milk run with stops in Birmingham and
Montgomery, Ala., and Orlando, Fla. The first leg was routine, but on descent
into Montgomery, three men who had boarded the plane in Birmingham burst into
the cabin, pressed a .38 caliber pistol into Capt. Haas’s cheek, and ordered him
to divert to Jackson, Miss.

The gunmen wanted to hold the airplane and its 30 passengers for ransom from
the city of Detroit, which they claimed had falsely accused them of rape and
assault and whose police, the skyjackers claimed, had brutalized them.

After refueling at Jackson, the DC-9 headed north, where the skyjackers
forwarded a demand to Detroit city officials for $10 million and 10 parachutes.
A 30-hour ordeal followed, with the skyjackers popping pills, depleting the
airplane’s liquor supply, and terrorizing the passengers while making an erratic
series of demands.

During a fuel stop in Cleveland, Ohio, the skyjackers kept law enforcement
personnel at bay with rifles and live hand grenades while food, water, and
clothing were loaded onto the airplane. The skyjackers forced the pilots to fly
to Toronto, Ont., then to Tennessee, and twice to Cuba, where they hoped to
secure political asylum. Capt. Haas and his copilot, First Officer Billy
Johnson, were forced to circle for hours, all the while relaying the progress of
negotiations with law enforcement personnel on the ground and trying to reason
with the skyjackers.

When Capt. Haas was allowed to use the rest room, he visited with every
passenger in the DC-9’s cabin, reassuring them and reminding them to do whatever
the skyjackers asked.

On the route south from Toronto, as the airplane circled above Knoxville,
Tenn., one of the gunmen held a grenade to Capt. Haas’s throat and ordered him
to plunge the aircraft into the nuclear power plant at Oak Ridge. As the pilot
put the plane into a circling descent, he got word that an airplane carrying the
ransom (in reality, only about $2 million of it) would meet the DC-9 in
Chattanooga, Tenn.

The scene at Chattanooga Airport was a carnival, with spectators lined up
outside the chain-link fence to try to get a glimpse of the skyjackers as
authorities scrambled to load the partial ransom (in $20 bills, so as not to tip
off the gunmen), as well as fried chicken, coffee, cigarettes, pills, and a
six-pack of beer onto the airplane.

When the gunmen were rebuffed in their request for asylum at Havana, they
talked about flying to Europe to stash the ransom, but Capt. Haas convinced them
to return to the United States for more fuel and proper navigational charts.

During refueling in Orlando, FBI agents moved in and shot out the DC-9’s
tires. That enraged the skyjackers, who wounded F/O Johnson and ordered the
pilots to fly again to Cuba. Despite the aircraft’s shredded tires, Capt. Haas
managed the takeoff and landing smoothly; and the skyjackers, finally tiring,
were apprehended, ending the airborne drama. For their part in the hijacking,
the fugitives were sentenced to 8 years in a Cuban prison.

Friends and family of Capt. Haas credit his strong faith for pulling him
through the harrowing experience. His wife relates that he told her that in the
final hours, as he was circling Havana with his copilot struggling to remain
conscious, he said, "Lord, it’s up to you," and he told her, "in three hours, it
was over with."

On deplaning, one of the passengers marveled at the smooth landing,
accomplished as it was on nothing more than rims and charred rubber. "I didn’t
do it," the passenger said Capt. Haas told her. "I believe God did it."

George Hopkins, who included an account of the hijacking in ALPA’s history,
Flying the Line, Volume I, recounted that Cuban premier Fidel Castro was
at the airport to greet the crew as they disembarked. Surveying the burning
landing gear, Castro approached the pilot and said through an interpreter, "I
want to shake the hand of the man who kept that airplane in the air."

By all accounts, Capt. Haas came through the incident psychologically
unscathed. When a family member suggested that he might be apprehensive about
returning to the cockpit, he laughed and said, "You don’t think I’m going to let
three [thugs] shaft me out of the best job I ever had!"

Both Capt. Haas and F/O (now Capt.) Johnson received the ALPA Gold Medal for
Heroism for their actions. They and flight attendants Karen Chambers and Donna
Holman were also given the Daedalian Civilian Air Safety Award. And Lloyd’s of
London, the insurer of the DC-9, flew Capt. Haas to its home office to present
him with a clock for bringing the aircraft through with the hull intact.

Following his experience, Capt. Haas spoke often about the need for tighter
airport security and for better coordination in dealing with individuals who
threaten air crews and passengers. He took an active role in ALPA’s lobbying
efforts that led to passage of tougher anti-skyjacking laws and reinforcement of
the captain as ultimate authority in dealing with dangerous confrontations
aboard aircraft.

He lectured to numerous student and church groups and co-authored a book (now
out of print), Odyssey of Terror, with Atlanta journalist Ed Blair in
1977.

A native of Jackson, Tenn., Capt. Haas had worked as a freight and ticket
agent for American Airlines for about 10 years before signing on as a pilot for
Southern Airlines in July 1959. Less than a year later, he joined his fellow
pilots on the picket line in what was to be a 27-month strike at the carrier,
the longest pilot strike in post-war history.

He remained a strong ALPA supporter throughout his 29-year piloting career.
He served as a regional vice-president (now replaced by the system of executive
vice-presidents) in 1974, as the Southern Master Executive Council chairman in
1976, and as captain representative for Republic (formed by the merger of
Southern, North Central, and Hughes Air West) in the 1980s.

Capt. Bill Himmelreich, a retired Republic pilot who was a close friend of
Capt. Haas, says that "Southern’s management had a lot of respect for the ‘cool
and calm’ Capt. Haas, whom friends on the line knew as ‘Billy Bob.’" When
contract talks bogged down, Capt. Himmelreich says, Capt. Haas reportedly went
to management and said, "We’ll take some of the trimmings off our Christmas tree
and you take some of them off yours [including a no-strike proposal] and maybe
we can get this thing settled." The contract was concluded "in a week," Capt.
Himmelreich attests.

Republic merged with Northwest in 1986, and Capt. Haas finished out his
career with Northwest, retiring in September 1988.

Through the years, Capt. Haas kept in touch with his friends at Southern and
in 1994 organized the quarterly Southern Airways Dutch Treat Luncheons in
Memphis for former employees of the carrier that continue to this day.

He is survived by his wife of 39 years, Ann; five children, William, Jr.;
Gerry; James D., a captain for Northwest Airlines; John; and Elizabeth; 10
grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

Services and burial were in La Grange, Tenn., and the flags at Memphis
Airport flew at half mast following word of his death.